Chapter 1366 — Nowhere Left to Turn

On the northern frontier of Jingping, red light suddenly came crashing down from the heavens. Within that red glow drifted two wandering souls, one an earth soul and one a divine soul, desolate and wretched beyond telling, riddled full of holes by Shen Mu's arrows!

It was fortunate that the Heavenly Emperor's two souls were incomparably mighty, and so they were not blasted apart on the spot.

Even so, the earth soul and the divine soul of the Heavenly Emperor Taichu had been gravely wounded at their very root.

These two souls had in the beginning been summoned nineteen years ago, before the Jingping Calamity erupted, when Shen Mu, needing the Heavenly Emperor to lend a hand and carry Jingping through the disaster, had no choice but to call the souls back for him upon the Heavenly Emperor's own terms. At that time the Heavenly Emperor's two souls had already shattered into black soul-sand; to reshape them, Shen Mu went so far as to borrow power from the Lord of Heaven and the Lord of Earth, kowtowing to them again and again until their strength was granted him.

The reshaping of those two souls cost Shen Mu so much of his own vitality that he collapsed into unconsciousness. Yet once the Heavenly Emperor's two souls were remade, he did not step forward during the Jingping Calamity to shield Jingping; the calamity broke out all the same, and countless common folk and divine-ability users perished.

Only after he had taken dominion over the Yuan Realm did the Heavenly Emperor command the gods of the Heavenly Court to cease their targeting of Jingping, allowing it to survive, and then he went back on his word, ordering the reforms forbidden, suppressing Emperor Yanfeng and Jiang Baigui, Imperial Teacher of Jingping, and putting Ling Yushu to death.

That succession of bloody measures plunged Jingping into a great terror. By then Shen Mu had no souls left at all; he had given his very soul over to his elder brother Shen Fengqing, leaving him nothing but an undying divine consciousness and a body, a walking corpse.

It was Shen Mu's desperate defense of Jingping that bought Jingping its future. It was also at that time that the earth soul and divine soul of the Heavenly Emperor Taichu were reincarnated into Jingping; soulless and spiritless, Shen Mu wandered for two or three years before he came to the Heavenly Court. Now Shen Mu was sixteen, soon to be seventeen, and therefore he judged the Heavenly Emperor Taichu's incarnation in Jingping to be nineteen.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu is a mere buffoon, and a vicious one at that, to assassinate my incarnation by stealth; I will not suffer him!

" The Heavenly Emperor's earth soul and divine soul twined together in the air, shaking with fury. "I have indulged him far too long.

I never thought he would run so wild!

The Yuan Capital is my domain. He ekes out his wretched life beneath my eaves, and still dares such insolence.

I will not abide him!

" The Yuan Realm had originally been called the Yuan Capital, until the Earth Mother renamed it the Yuan Realm, declaring it her own territory; yet in the mouths of certain ancient gods, the Yuan Realm was still the Yuan Capital. "That he could find me means he must have used the Lord of Earth's Book of Life and Death, and also that my name contains the character Xiao.

It seems I can make no further use of Xiao! " Taichu was the name the Grand Emperor had given him, while Xiao was the name he had given himself.

He had always loathed the name Taichu, and so in every reincarnation his name must contain a Xiao. Gu Xiao, Chu Xiao, Xiao Weisu, Xiao Tianji, Xiao Chujue, each of them bore a Xiao.

Suddenly violent tremors rolled through the sky, and one towering god after another descended into the Yuan Realm; they did not enter through the spirit-energy transfer bridges, but descended directly! The energy of these towering gods was immense, pressing down so hard that the spirit-energy transfer bridges across the Yuan Realm ceaselessly spewed thick torrents of spirit energy, sustaining the realm's balance of energies.

After these gods descended, one ship after another, tall towers and mighty vessels, sailed into the Yuan Realm as well, sending the spirit energy gushing still more violently from the transfer bridges!

In the days when Heavenly Venerable Xiao's divine artifact Yutianzun and the Yuan Wood suppressed the Yuan Realm, no one would have dared commit such monstrous treason. But Yutianzun and the Yuan Wood had vanished, and the Yuan Realm was now a land without a master; and so certain beings in the Heavenly Court could no longer sit still, and could not keep their hands off the Yuan Realm.

"Worse and worse; exiled as I am by Heavenly Venerable Moon, I may not be able to hold the Yuan Capital! " The two souls took fright and hastily hid themselves, deeply uneasy.

"Last night's fierce battle raised far too great a commotion.

Though I sealed the Yuan Capital with the Yuan Wood so that the Heavenly Court could not notice the great battle in the Yuan Realm, they will surely send experts to investigate.

Seeing that I have vanished, those sly fellows who leave no hole unprobed will certainly seize this chance to snatch the Yuan Capital! " From the towers in the sky, slender-waisted, long-legged black hounds suddenly came leaping out, flooding in every direction like a deluge!

"Howling Celestial Hounds!

" The Heavenly Emperor's two souls were all the more alarmed. The Heavenly Court kept a vast number of Howling Celestial Hounds, and these hounds were skilled at tracking people; but they were held in the hands of the Divine Constabulary, and every divine constable in that Constabulary had likely been mustered. Yet whoever could muster all the divine constables must wield power that reached the heavens, at the very least an existence on the level of the Four Emperors!

More and more Howling Celestial Hounds poured down from the sky, sniffing wildly in every direction; some even made straight for the crescent moon above, transforming into primordial beasts of the wilds, opening their great jaws to devour the Yuan Realm's moon.

A goddess dwelt upon that moon, and a flash of sword-light severed the hound's head; the rest scattered in a panic.

Just then the sky abruptly turned dazzling bright, and there came three-legged golden crows drawing golden chariots into the Yuan Realm, huge golden crows hauling carriages, their blazing fire becoming little suns that rolled across the heavens above the Yuan Realm! "The Golden Crow Army, under the Great Sun Star Lord!

" The Heavenly Emperor's two souls were still more alarmed.

The Golden Crow Army was the personal guard of the Ancestral God King, commanded by the Great Sun Star Lord Dan Fenglai. The eyes of these golden crows were incomparably keen, and they too could discern the finest detail; plainly the Golden Crow Army had come to hunt for the whereabouts of Heavenly Venerable Xiao.

"This time it is truly bad!

" The Heavenly Emperor's two souls quailed within. "A fine deed Heavenly Venerable Mu has done!

" Suddenly a white cat dropped from the sky, bounding through the air as though in flight, leaping to and fro across the Golden Crow Army's chariots, swift in its running.

The Golden Crow Army dared not voice its rage.

The white cat sprang onto the back of a Howling Celestial Hound and, eyes wide, gazed out over the mountains and rivers of the Yuan Realm.

The Heavenly Emperor's two souls could not help but shudder.

This white cat, Xiao Qi, was a handsome man of the Heavenly Court, the paramour of Heavenly Consort Yan; that Consort Yan had now released the white cat made her purpose plain enough, to hunt down Heavenly Venerable Xiao!

"Vicious shrew, cruel indeed, to send her lover to kill me!

" The Heavenly Emperor's two souls fled swiftly.

The sky grew brighter still.